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It is a major handicap to being a competitive MLB team if your improvements aren't coming from all available options.

Everyone can trade. Not everyone, especially in our division, can spend money. There's no good reason not to take advantage of that fact.

No, you have to have a GOOD system to be able to trade for impact guys from. Preferrably guys in the upper levels at that. Theres plenty of teams that don't have that. And again, the guys that are available in FA this year, other than Hamilton or Greinke, are there every year and aren't putting you in the playoffs immediately unless you spend 75 mill in an offseason. Which likely puts you right back to being the 2009 Cubs, after a couple of decent years.

Sure, it's harder. It's hard to be the one team out of 30 that wins the World Series. If you are scared of hard, then you aren't the right men for the job.

Or maybe if you're the guy willing to throw 75 mill of your payroll at FA, gaining 15 WAR in the process, just to get the "variance" up a bit higher for the "hope" something great happens, YOU'RE not the right guy. They're trying something a major market team has never done, are willing to incur the wrath of impatient fans, that have never had a pot to piss in with this team to begin with, because they felt this direction would work out better longterm. Better than the path of throwing money around, when other teams can do it moreso, and other teams have a much better base to begin with.

I'd say a major league core of a good to excellent team would include 2-3 All Star position player types, 3 more guys that are better than leahue average and 2 guys that basically are league average. Pitching? I'd want a legit ace(top 10 pitcher in baseball), another SP thats an AS as often as not, 2 solid workhorse types that slot in as 3's on the BA pitching scale, and a league average 5th, with a decent depth guy at 6, and a rookie that you don't think gets shelled at 7, if he gets thrown into the mix. Hard throwing bullpen arms throughout. With a system that sits in the top 10-12, thats neither top or bottom heavy, where each affiliate has solid prospects at it. Age-wise? The average age of yhe major league squad is 27.

So the Cubs have to produce a top 10 pitcher in all of baseball, another AS quality pitcher, 2-3 AS positional talents, 3 more above league average, a league average 5th, a bullpen, AND a top tier farm system before FA spending? Sounds realistic.

I don't think anyone is looking at 2014 as a playoff season.

Who is anyone?

Nor do I see why FA has to be where positive additions have to come from.

Then you're being incredibly short sighted.

Personally, I think we'll make a trade or two that bring in good, young major leaguers next offseason.

Signings FAs wouldn't stop this.

We're not going to see some bigtime splurge in FA like 2006 ever out of this group.

But they'll make the playoffs 8 out of 10 years? All purely on the basis of their farm system? Hmmk, again I see no reason why this is realistic. What decade of baseball are you working in here, the 1920's?

Maybe instead of that, 2 guys like Edwin Jackson, Nick Swisher?(not them, but guys that project that way in 2014 or 15).

Who are these guys that "project that way?" Let me guess - only if they come at an arbitrary standard of cheap?

Matt Garza has one season above 3.1 fWAR in seven tries.

Luckily with the Cubs in a very recent season, and one more than Jeff Samardzija.

The FA landscape has changed quite a bit over the last few years. Instead of a fair amount of 27-29 year olds, its turned to 31-34 year olds. It's not the same, harder to navigate now.

27-29 was never easy to find in FA, especially of high quality talent.

And again, the guys that are available in FA this year, other than Hamilton or Greinke, are there every year and aren't putting you in the playoffs immediately unless you spend 75 mill in an offseason. Which likely puts you right back to being the 2009 Cubs, after a couple of decent years.

Or maybe if you're the guy willing to throw 75 mill of your payroll at FA, gaining 15 WAR in the process, just to get the "variance" up a bit higher for the "hope" something great happens, YOU'RE not the right guy. They're trying something a major market team has never done, are willing to incur the wrath of impatient fans, that have never had a pot to piss in with this team to begin with, because they felt this direction would work out better longterm. Better than the path of throwing money around, when other teams can do it moreso, and other teams have a much better base to begin with.

What else are you going to do with that $75 milllion?

It seems like we're just locking in the downside here. We're scared of having seasons where we lose because we don't have enough money to spend, so in order to avoid that we're going to lose and not spend money.

The system isn't expected to produce everything. It IS supposed to produce some and net other young, good, cheap players thru trade. This should help us more than FA. No, I don't think that when the time is right to sign the Nick Swishers of the world, I'll have any issue with the contract he's been given. Shark was over 3.1 fWAR this year, by the way. And again, if they put us in that variance range, where if things fall right, we can contend, they ARE actually operating on dual fronts. Just not with long term deals.

I didn't expect this team to be incredibly competitive either last year or this year. I definitely didn't see the point in chasing .500 by holding onto aging veterans, which is essentially what the 2010 and 2011 rosters were doing, and there was no realistic path to playoff success. Suggestions that holding onto Ramirez and signing a couple of other veterans would have added more than 20 wins to the 2012 roster is just silly.

At the same time, this front office has done a very good job of excising the bad contracts of the Hendry administration, and as result their payroll has plummetted going into this off season. The restrictions they had in 2012 are not present this year, and there is no imminent wave of young talent coming down the line. So I did expect them to at least dabble in more than reclamation projects. Staying away from $100 million + contracts and players approaching their mid 30's is obviously a good idea, but there are prime phase secondary players available that should be seriously considered. I don't agree with the concept that even mid level contracts should be avoided like the plague until the team already has talent on the roster.

It seems like we're just locking in the downside here. We're scared of having seasons where we lose because we don't have enough money to spend, so in order to avoid that we're going to lose and not spend money.

If we take them at their word, the money saved will be put back into the team in future seasons. I have my doubts about this personally, but I guess I can see it as a way to account for massive posting fees all at once, if we ever get one of those types.